Cartridges or optical discs?

[Pemalite]

SvennoJ said:

Carts have superior load time to running directly from an optical disc, however the current switch carts already fall behind 5400 rpm hdd and internal storage.

Correct.
But that was a given anyway.

Also depends on the type of 5400rpm HDD's. Older 2.5" 5400RPM drives struggled to hit and maintain 50MB/s.
But where the Switch's cart does come out ahead (And is generally a massive advantage for all solid state storage) is random reads/writes.

Which is why when SSD's first came out (I was an early adopter) their Read/Write speeds weren't significantly better than mechanical disks... But were still worth the upgrade as it made a system feel extremely snappy.

SvennoJ said:

Carts can have superior storage yet are maxed at 32GB atm.

That's generally a Nintendo limitation.
NAND/ROM can scale by adding more chips. Sometimes you might need a better controller though.

SvennoJ said:

Carts can have equivalent audio/video quality, yet it's better for devs to stay under 8GB for cheaper carts, inviting more compression.

That is a limitation/choice from the developer, not a limitation of the technology itself. They aren't required to choose a smaller cart capacity size.
With that, there are already games that are exceeding the capacity for Dual-Layer Blu-Ray Disks that the Xbox One and Playstation 4 utilize, thus requiring compression as well. Or even additional downloads. (Halo: Master Chief Collection being an example.)

SvennoJ said:

Carts are generally more durable and portable, also more easily lost or misplaced.

Well. You aren't wrong. But also not an issue for someone like me who looks after their shiznit.
With that... The only carts I own are a few Nintendo 64 carts and a single DS cart.
But I have hundreds of games on Disk, I'll buy whatever the platform offers rather than buy a platform just for the media it uses.

SvennoJ said:

The cost factor is indeed the single caveat, yet it spoils all the advantages you listed. Sure you can have 128GB 275 MB/s cards, yet those cost $200 atm. Cost is a rather huge factor. In the here and now, optical discs offer more storage, less need for compression, and after installation no difference or faster loading times compared to running from a card.

The memory markets are extremely volatile, but the general trend is towards larger capacities for a lower price.

Stacked memory has made massive inroads in that aspect... Whilst individual chip costs are higher, their price-per-gigabyte is lower.

Mr_No said:

 

I'm frankly tired of going in circles with this conversation. I expressed my opinion, you didn't care for it at first, then respected it later on... If you still want to make your right to express yourself worth something, be my guest. I'm not gonna reply anymore to this or any of your comments. Adhere to that.

Just because I respect your opinion doesn't mean I am not allowed to think it is incorrect and thus challenge it.
Again, if you do not wish for people to challenge your assertions and reply to your posts. -Then a forum is probably not the best avenue for you.